donald trump will hold a campaign-style rally in fayetteville, north carolina, a crucial swing state that trump won in the president, election. in washington, d.c., we're continuing to get into the holiday spirit with we are continuing to get into the holiday spirit. the spruce from idaho will be lit by paul ryan. >> not quite the rockefeller christmas tree. >> come on, guys. we do okay down here, too. >> that does it for us. "morning joe" starts right now. ♪ ♪ because you are going into the final days of your time in office does that add to the emotion you feel? >> i have not thought about it in that rational way, but i guess so. my staff always kids me, every

time i come up here i feel insreug rated. i love this place. this is where i spent my life. >> i am going to run in 2020. >> for what? >> for president. so, what the hell, man. >> were you kidding about running for president in 2020? good morning, everyone. it's tuesday, december 6th. welcome to "morning joe." with us on set we have veteran columnist and msnbc contributor, mike barnicle, and managing editor, and eugene robinson and joe and me.

>> a one-man protest this morning, i will not talk about the 2020 race, no matter how many times they play the clip of biden. please, let's start the 2016 presidency. >> i want to see the 2020 primary. >> that's terrible. >> hilarious. >> guy is hating life for not running this time. >> hey, they could not do better. >> i mean, yeah, he's thinking about it. >> he's in new york tonight and maybe he will kick off the campaign. >> let's talk about now shall we? bringing this in for a landing.

>> joe biden will be 78 in 2020. >> that's just fine. >> in great shape. >> bernie sanders will be state, and if donald trump does well over the next four years, he will be running against a 74-year-old. >> guys, about right now -- >> and -- >> let me get to the news. good god. sources tell "morning joe" that huntsman is not in serious contention to lead the state department and never was, and sources also say petraeus no longer a serious candidate either, and rudy guiliani is fading as a candidate for the nomination as well, and he is going to contest that today loudly on some stage somewhere with a microphone. >> and the secretary of state is still wide open.

>> with mitt romney at the top of the list. and sources say trump is, quote, intrigued with tillerson's vast knowledge of the world. >> it's wide open is the thing. >> it's still wide open. i don't know that romney is at the top of the list but he seems to be in the tom tier. mark halperin, we have seen this go from having frantic reports a couple mondays ago that john bolton was about to be selected to one day later having frantic reports that rudy guiliani was going to be selected, and then there were reports that mitt romney was just a smoke screen and i, for one, think it's a good idea for your most important selection you open it up and even have people like bob

gates come in to advise you. >> yeah, a lot of this gap in time has led a lot of people to weigh in, and some of the candidates or perspective candidates after sitting back and not mounting a campaign, you have people to call, and a lot of data going to trump tower about who the best selection would be, and as i understand it, the president-elect and vice president-elect are shifting through that, and now thinking about more concretely how will they work with general flynn and how will they work with mattis. >> and we talked about it yesterday, talking about a mattis and bob gates combination is a grand slam, and everybody yesterday was saying it was like man actual and merice, and the fact that we have moved there from john bolton is significant. >> i was in washington all

weekend and that town is consumed by the transition and the consensus is that the mattis appointment is a home run, that's a real home run, and the consensus with the people i spoke with, it's a good thing. they always throw in there you have mattis, a strong secretary of state, and you need that to counter the negative influence of general flynn. >> think of how difficult the candidates are that we put out there. if you think bolton is a great idea -- >> that makes no sense. >> and then governor, more of a manager, and rudy guiliani, a mayor more of a homeland

security guy, and my point is these guys are all over the map. >> yeah, and romney knows the world. a lot of different names in there and the more the better. >> we will keep watching that and see what happens over at trump tower, and there are new developments about trump's call with taiwan, and nbc news confirms that bob dole arranged the call with the taiwanese president. "the wall street journal" says the call went before pleasantries and included a discussion about china and stability in the region, according to the person familiar with the conversation. on friday trump emphasized the president of taiwan, quote, called me, and while pence is going to be on the show today said the call had no policy implications, and soon after

trump slammed the chinese government for manipulating their currency, over taxing american products and for a military buildup in the south china sea. meanwhile, former secretary of state, henry kissinger will meet with the president-elect at trump tower later today. kissinger an architect of u.s. and china policy just returned to beijing where he met with the president, and he spoke about how the chinese view's trump's call. >> at this moment i have been very impressed by the calm reaction of the chinese leadership. chairman suggests that a determination to see whether a calm dialogue can be developed. >> yeah.

so gene robinson, we had been told initially that this was a bumbling call and he stumbled into it, and now we find out actually that bob dole had set it up and it was planned, and i guess the statements afterwards suggest that. does that make it better or worse for you? >> well, you know, i continue to think it was not the wisest thing to do, however, i think kissinger is right, the chinese have reacted quite mildly to this. you know, in a certain sense from their point of view, they are kind of used to breaking in new presidents to the one-china policy, and donald trump is not the first president to come into office, at least the first to come in and have the storied phone call and he's not the first to come into office and think we ought to rebalance this and have better relations with taiwan, and reagan thought that,

and bush 43 thought that, and they get into office and they begin to understand the relationship with china china, and they decide maybe we are not going to do that much rebalancing because it's a huge relationship. and i think the chinese are banking on that same thing happening this time. >> mark halperin, do you remain the only -- >> i have backup now. >> who believes the phone call made sense. >> cotton, and ted cruz -- >> you and cruz. >> that's not helpful. >> foreign policy hands can mock me and say this is horrible, and this is not about taiwan and it's about resetting the relationsh relationship, and the chinese is calling the white house saying

tell us what the trump man is up to, and obama says we don't know. that's unpredictability. and a little unpredictability is a good thing and too much is scary. i don't know this is too much and it might be a little bit. >> i have to say there have been administrations, republican administrations that have gone in and been accused of cow towing to china, and like i said -- >> one more thing. this could back fire. i am not saying this is a winning thing, but it's what he said he would do. >> what i said is year after year after year we have the debates on extending the most favored status to china and we put conditions on them and year

after year china runs straight over the conditions and ignore us, and there are a lot of people, especially conservatives that think this phone call may have made a lot of sense. conservatives and mark halperin. >> it's not a defense of it, but to mark's point we should not be surprised. he talked about china as one of the organized themes of the foreign policy and hitting china over and over again, and the other part that doesn't ring true is that donald trump sort of the phone rang in his office, and he picked it up and talked to the president of taiwan. bob dole set this up, and then this was part of an organized move that he made to send up a flare about china. >> i had an interesting conversation about saturday night in washington with a democratic united states senator who raised the issue of, you know, how interesting is it that

donald trump puts out there the taiwan call and people then find out that we have been selling billions of dollars of weapons to taiwan and we don't speak to the leader of taiwan. >> yeah, it is hard to be offended when they don't speak to the president of taiwan, and a dude sitting watching tv in scranton, pennsylvania, going, really? what is wrong with you people in washington, you are pissed off about a phone call but giving them $2 billion in military equipment. doesn't match! >> we are giving taiwan all this military equipment and there's a de facto situation and a formal situation. but what is potentially dangerous is that taiwan is for china a core interest, and a

core interest defined as something you will go to war over, and i don't think you start there, you start someplace else and maybe you get to sort of upset the apple cart on the core issue, but i don't think that's where you start. >> i disagree. if that's the issue that is most important to them, that's where i start. and it's almost like, you know, that whole james carville thing, look over there, and you draw their attention to something that matters to them, and i say that is the most important thing to me, you have me on "dateline" three times every two years, and i want out of this play. >> you have never been on "dateline." >> i am joking about "dateline," but that's what you do, you say this is the most important thing to me and they are ringing their hands and we can't make it work, and then you say, okay, just give me money. what is the most important thing

to donald trump as it pertains to china? barack obama told him you can worry about the affordable care act and you can worry about the wall, and can worry about all the things now, but the second you sit in my chair, you can be worried about north carolikorea. make them think when you give on taiwan, you are giving something -- like you said, gene, the most important thing to china, but in return this is what i want. you have to cooperate with us more on north korea. >> how hard will it be to say to the chinese for donald trump, you helped me with north carolina, i won't talk to the taiwanese. >> that's right. you will be held accountable in north korea and you clean that up or i will go to taiwan six months from now.

>> and trump will be giving up nothing. and again, as barack obama said, the possibility of them striking seattle with nuclear weapons at the end of trump's administration. >> gene, final word. >> you want the chinese to help you out on north korea, and the chinese already know it's in their interest to keep north korea under some control and the question for them is how do you that without a total collapse of the north korean regime that sends millions of people into china and destabilizes the entire region. i think we have a pretty productive relationship with china on north korea and there's differences on how to proceed. >> the problem is they are moving towards having the ability to strike seattle with a nuclear weapon in the next few years, so something has to change. >> i am with you. there has to be a change. i don't think necessarily threatening them with some sort

of major change in taiwan is going to help in north korea. i don't see that helping. north korea is a big enough issue itself, and those missiles threaten all of china, so you know, and chinese interests in the region, and so that's big enough to be an issue all it's own. >> i was so excited. >> that may have been the greatest moment in the 2016 campaign, the belt buckle, and talking about the hammer. >> yes! >> you dig a hammer in that head and -- >> the theater of the campaign. >> we will show that because the guy that donald trump was talking about. >> it was the greatest moment of 2016 campaign. low energy jeb was nothing compared to the belt buckle. >> remember?

>> yeah. >> oh, the knife? >> dramatic reinaccountment, and he did that thing when he walks away from the podium and showed his belt buckle and did this. ridiculous. >> that's ahead. >> the other guy is going to be president. the vice president elect of the united states, governor mike pence is here today. plus, congressman ed royce, and nbc's hallie jackson traveling with donald trump today on the next leg of his thank you tour, and reverend al sharpton on the mistrial of a former police officer filmed gunning down walter scott. >> mike barnicle shot five times in the back. how can that be a mistrial? >> well, 11-1. >> it's unbelievable. >> you have got video. you have video -- sorry!

>> i don't know if the one vote was for manslaughter or complete acquittal. we don't know that. >> we will tell you more about that. >> they need to try the guy again tomorrow. there's a federal trial coming up -- >> they will cut a manslaughter deal. >> here is bill karins with the forecast. >> i want to give you the definition of helpless. it only took a coating of ice and a little snow, and there was one bus and then a work truck and then another bus, and here comes the police car to help. that didn't work out so well. he ends up back ending into the bus and now bringing a snowplow in, and this guy will help, right? as he is salting the road -- yeah, this is only an inch of snow. >> it's amateur hour. >> he hit hard. >> this is montreal. have they never seen snow before? come on, guys. >> blame it on justin.

>> he's out boxing. >> fake boxing opponent. >> oh, my gosh. >> this is unbelievable. >> this is slow motion, right? >> nobody got hurt. >> maybe he is down in cuba gently sweeping at the head of the castro statue. >> rain this morning all through the south, beneficial rains over the fires and we love stkphrbth maybe an isolated tornadoes over georgia, and not too concerned with it here. and it's an umbrella day if you are on the east coast, and it's not range yet in washington, d.c., philadelphia and new york, and 7:00 a.m., 8:00 a.m., and as you move into the north we will get wintry mess in the interior sections of pennsylvania, and right around the lunch hour, it will rain steadily all afternoon, and philadelphia the rain moves in 2:00 or 3:00, and you are dry, so that's good, and

it looks like new york city rain is starting 6:00 to 7:00 p.m., and the story the rest of the week will be the fridged cold starting today in the northern plains. new york city looks like we are not going to get snow on the christmas tree at rockefeller center, and it's very cold the rest of the week. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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>> i don't know his dad. is he nice? >> he's a good guy and watches "morning joe." >> he does? that's nice. >> after the election, you know what, he said you have great parents and you could tell he was raised well and he was gracious afterwards, even though it crushed him. >> he went right back to work. >> didn't weep like some late-night hosts. >> some people needed a sabbatical. and then the neuro surgeon turned into one of trump's top surrogates after -- >> carson is the one that stabbed his mom, right? no, he hit her in the head with a hammer? -- >> did he hammer or stab her? >> trump knows.

>> now carson is an enigma to me. i didn't say it. carson's an enigma. he wrote a book and he's doing great in iowa, and he's second in the polls, with all of these professional politicians, i am first and carson is second, and i don't understand it. i really don't understand it. because he wrote a book and in the book he said terrible things about himself. he said that he's pathological and that he's got basically pathological disease. i don't want a person that has pathological disease. i don't want it. i am not saying he's got it. he said it. this is not something where i am saying he's a pathological liar, i'm not saying it. he said he has pathological disease and he said pathological temper and then defined it as disease, so he said he had

pathological disease. if you are a child molester, a sick puppy, you are a child molester, there's no cure for that, and there's only one cure and we don't want to talk about that cure, and that's the ultimate cure, and there's two, there's death and the other thing. but if you are a child molester, there's no cure. they can't stop you. pathological, there's no cure. now, he said he was pathological, okay. think of this, he went after his mother with a hammer! at a fairly young age, 14, 15 years old. i didn't. i didn't. okay. he hits a friend of his in the face with a padlock. like a master's padlock, wah, in the face, with a padlock, a lot

of damage. i never did that. then here's the beauty of all. he took a knife and he went after a friend and he lunged, he lunged that knife into the stomach of his friends, but low and be hold it hit the belt and the knife broke, and give me a break. let me tell you, i'm pretty good at this stuff. i have a belt. it moves this way and it moves this way and it moves that way, and he took the knife and went like this and plunged it into the belt and amazingly the belt stayed totally flat and the knife broke. how stupid are the people of iowa? how stupid are the people of the country to believe this crap?

>> the main thing going on there, but of course the headline this morning is that is, ladies and gentlemen, your hud secretary. >> and your president. >> do you see the people behind trump? this is early enough in the campaign where they were looking like, what stp? what has happened? >> i came to a political rally, and that's before they were in on it. >> they are just sitting there going, what? in the history of speeches, willie, and we were talking about this, of course, you have the gettysburg aggress, and you have your finest hour speech by churchill in 1940, and then you have the belt buckle speech. >> i love the belt buckle speech. and the amazing thing about the speech is, it was the beginning of the end for ben carson. after that speech -- >> you watch donald trump becoming a president there.

>> no. >> you just watched donald trump being trump, which he still is trump there. >> you are saying he was a drawing a contrast whereas ben carson hit his mom with a hammer, and i have never hit my mom with a hammer, and then ben carson later said he was not cut out to run a bureaucracy, and now -- >> he's running hud now, fantastic. that's going to work well. >> so -- >> he had low energy jeb, that took down jeb, and lyin' ted cruz, and then little marco, and you have marco -- >> that was little, little. >> and little marco was telling porn jokes, and then little marco had to apologize. i am sorry. but this, this really was -- this was -- >> crookid hillary.

>> the one little tweak, if you want to step away from the mike -- >> couldn't really hear him. >> i could understand the mime. >> so anyway, ben carson -- >> wow, that's our hud second. >> and he's a world-renown brain surgeon, and not as much with public housing. >> just a guess. i have no evidence of this. he's going to have a very, very strong administrator right beneath him. >> maybe. >> i would think the number two probably will be elon musk. >> i think it will be a tough confirmation. >> will the confirmations be on the comedy channel? and then we'll be right back. >> that's the lead in the "new

york times," and you have republican leaders saying they are real concerned. >> we will be right back with more "morning joe."

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what a great song. >> donald trump is getting early opposition on capitol hill to his sunday morning twitter comments about trade. trump said u.s. businesses that send jobs offshore would face a 35% tax on their products coming back to the u.s., but trump's republican allies on capitol hill are balking at the idea. house majority leader, kevin mccarthy, told reporters i think what he was trying to make was he was trying to create jobs in america. today the best way to make that change is through tax reform. i don't want to get into some kind of trade war. house weighs and means said while he respect trump, to with draw from the partnership, we can't with draw because american

businesses and customers will lose out. >> co-author of "the playbook," and kasie hunt. jake, this was probably going to be the first area predictively where donald trump is going to run into resistance from his own republican party and may need help from democrats to pass legislation that does this. >> i don't think it's going to happen, quite frankly. what republicans are going to do is pivot to tax reform which will create a better environment in america to create jobs. i talked to somebody in house republican leadership yesterday and they were trying to say we need to teach donald trump how to be a republican. this is not the kind of stuff we have advocated for for the last ten years. >> i don't think it's going to happen, teach donald trump to be a republican and he has been a democrat most of his life, and i don't think he will listen to the friday lunch bunch or

whatever they are called these days. >> i think that's probably right and the republicans are wary with the individual deals he is cutting with companies, or that mike pence cut. i think the republicans have spent the last ten years railing against crony capitalism and giving sweetheart deals to business and it happens across the country and republicans are aware of that and it's going to run into resistance. we have a poll out this morning that backs up donald trump position in huge numbers, 70% of people polled support the president and vice president getting involved in the deals with private companies. the public seems to be overwhelmingly with donald trump, and against republicans. >> you know, kasie hunt, this is going to be the rub with conconservative republicans in the house, with paul ryan and kevin mccarthy and very conservative republican house caucus. there's a reason donald trump won wisconsin, michigan, and

pennsylvania, and won all three for the first time since 1984, and that's because he was talking about things like tariff's against china and keeping carrier in the united states. >> he was not just talking about it, joe, he was talking about it in terms that people understand in a straightforward way, and they understand the president-elect getting on the phone with the company and convincing them they should not move their plant to mexico. it's hard to understand why, quote, unquote, tax reform has any impact on their day-to-day life. >> you know, casie, great point, and but don't tell somebody in wisconsin that's what they voted for when they voted for donald trump, lower corporate tax rates. >> i just think it's very easy for that kind of a message to get completely lost. i think there's some risk for

republicans in washington. yes, they control now the white house and both houses of congress, but so far there's still a lot of evidence that republicans here missed why it is that donald trump got elected. i think there are very real policy implications, as we are already seeing, that are fundamentally at odds of where the party has already been, and jake said we will have to teach donald trump how to be a republican and i think it's possible that the american people are teaching washington they want something else and donald trump looks more like what they have been offering up. and there's reckoning still at hand, and that said, i think if donald trump is aproef proefpin in a way where he wants to put wins early on, i wouldn't start with the issue and there are places that he could go that might bode a little better for his success.

>> jake, what are the odds according to the people you speak to of elements of tpp existing and surviving through the house debates? >> zero, i would say. some conservative members of the house have a theory that paul ryan is going to push this through in the lame duck session of congress, and there's no chance that will happen and i think this is dead and the people who have been getting paid a lot of money to promote it will see their retainers go down. your next guess, mike pence, the vice president-elect, he has a huge role in this, and he was the chief communicator for house republicans, and if you put him on truth serum, he would not say tariffs are a good idea on products because it would raise costs on american consumers, so american republicans who have been bad at messaging these

kinds of things, and they can get to a point that will say broad base tax reform will have the same consequences that tariffs have, and that's tough because republicans for a long time have been really bad at messaging, since they took the majority in 2010, they had a tough time at messaging. and the question is will they be able to massage that message a little bit. >> can you go back a little further, and republicans had trouble messing since 1965. up next, a mistrial has been declared for a police officer seen shooting a man in the back, but the family of walter scott says it's not over.

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he will get his just reward, and we have the federal trial and the other trial to go. i don't care how it looks, it's not over.

y'all hear me? it's ought over! >> in my heart i will find the peace to forgive him for what he has done to my brother, but until we can see justice, there's no forgiveness. >> a missed opportunity to heal a lot of wounds in the country, and the missed opportunity to put on that badge. he may have delayed justice but he did not escape it, and we all saw what he did and what happened. >> the family of walter scott speaking yesterday after the trial of michael slager in a mistrial. slager was shown shooting scott

as he was running away. the jury consisted of 11 white men and a woman and a black man sent a note to the judge prior to yesterday's decision saying, quote, a majority of the jurors are still undecided. asked for several clarifications and definitions. later in the trial the judge allowed the jury to consider manslaughter, and slager testified in his own defense saying he feared for his life after scott wrestled away his taser and pointed it at him. the trial lasted a month and included testimony from 55 witnesses. and the officer is going the tried again, and slager will appear in federal court next year on civil rights violations. joining us is the host of msnbc's "politics nation," reverend al sharpton.

>> al, i want to get to you in a second. the state is going to bring charges against shraoelager, ri? >> yeah, the jury was hopelessly deadlocked and the prosecutors announced yesterday they will retry the case. >> and charleston is 50% black and 50% black, and why was the jury makeup 11 whites and one black. >> often you have disproportionate over representation of whites and blacks, and voter registration, who shows up, and you see a -- >> can a judge be more aggressive in this case especially, and make sure that at least the jury makeup is somewhat consistent with the demographic makeup of a community? >> i think it's a great question

and it's one communities are wrestling with around the country, and what judges do is try to interfere if they think something is sexist, but the nature of the way you move jurors, you can do it for almost no reason, you just can't do it for a bad reason. >> this is shocking. a lot of americans can't believe this happened. i am one of them. i want justice to happen. what does -- what do the federal civil rights charges bring, and what penalties would those bring if he's found guilty of violating civil rights? >> the federal case, assuming the next administration continues it out of doj, and that would involve long preison times, and it looks like the local prosecutor still wants their crack at it to finish out this case, and the other thing about the video is it's not only the moment of the killing, and it shows the shots in the back as somebody flees, and it doesn't look like on a plain

viewing look like the fleeing is a officer, and it appears to show him planting evidence, a taser near the body. now, he defended that. he denied that in the case. the video, again, was seemingly damming on that point. >> and the statements afterward were damming, and reverend ally have absolutely no idea how any juror could have not come up with a murder charge here. so what is the next step? what is the next step for the family? what is the next step for the community and the next step for americans? >> i think that you raise the fact that many people were stunned. i went down the weekend after the shooting, and even the mayor in north charleston and police chief came to the church i spoke at and condemned this.

when you look at, i think you raised the right question, joe, how in the city, north charleston, south carolina, 47% black and you have only one black on the jury, and how does the message go out now that you can on videotape watch a man shooting at an unarmed man running away from him, and he argues i was in imminent danger. >> five times in the back, as -- he is jogging away, and shot five times in the back. he gets busted planting evidence on this guy. >> we can't get a conviction. >> it's a disgrace. >> that's what is so critical and that's why people are so out raeup raged, and this is why a lot of us are saying, it's as if these

issues don't remain, and the question is will this next administration continue the federal charges and the hope the family expressed yesterday was this is just justice delayed and we are going to go to another state trial and we have the federal trial and we hope the federal trial still goes on under the next administration, because a new attorney general can stop the trial. >> that's what jeff sessions needs to be asked immediately, if they are going to move ahead with the federal charges against a police officer condemned by his own department who shot a black man in the back five times. >> when this jury was chosen, 11 white jurors and one black juror, the family attorney, chris stewart said, i'm not worried about that makeup, because anybody, no matter their race with two eyes can watch the video and see what happened.

there was one hold out as a procedural matter. >> what could it be? >> could it be that they didn't want murder charges? >> based on what we know because the jury was offered murder and manslaughter, i think the hold-out juror was not going to convict on anything, and it was suggested in the foreperson's mind, the vote was 11-1, and that does tell you that even in a situation where we know jurors do give police the benefit of the doubt as most officers widely deserve, and even there at one point according to the foreperson, 11 people were willing to convict on something. it's a balance. the racial inequities are well known and documented, and it's worth noting according to a foreperson that you had a majority of a white juror that were ready to convict, so in fairness to them, they were not

looking at it according to race. >> gene, you grew up there. what are you thinking? >> i'm thinking why do people wonder where black lives matter comes from, right? because this is really the crux of the issue. everybody understands, the demands we put on police officers and everybody understands not every police officer is going to be of the most sterling character although most are, and 99.9 of police officers are not going to do this sort of thing, but when one does, there has to be justice and there has to be consequences, and that's where this idea -- how cheap is black life in america that you can't even punish an officer who shoots a man five times in the back while he's jogging away, and then plants evidence?

i can't think of a more sort of blatant -- >> al sharpton, what is staggering, most of the time charges are not brought on these police officers, and this time, you know, the video evidence is so damming against a police officer they have to bring charges this time, and justice will be found this time. >> and they did bring charges, joe. >> so they bring charges you have a jury of 12 with 11 white people in a community that is basically 50/50. >> i think what people are asking this morning, if this is all done on video, the mayor and the police chief immediately came in and said this is wrong in the deep south, and you still get this kind of verdict. that's why some of us continue to march, and that's why some of us raise the issue. >> you say in the deep south, but what about on staten island where we saw a man choked to

death? >> saying i can't breathe 11 times. 11 times. at some point we are going to have to stop blaming those of us that raise the questions and start answering the questions on how do you get equal protection under the law? >> yeah, reverend al sharpton, thank you very much, and thank you both. coming up, the man in charge of the trump transition, vice president-elect, mike wednesday joins us. developing more clean burning natural gas. my job? my job at exxonmobil? turning algae into biofuels. reducing energy poverty in the developing world. making cars go further with less. fueling the global economy. and you thought we just made the gas. ♪ energy lives here. if you're going to wish, wish big at the

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♪ ♪ congratulations are also in order for dr. ben carson, president-elect trump picked him to run the department of housing and urban development, which is going to be quite a surprise when he finally wakes up. ben carson, in case you don't know, was a former neuro surgeon with no experience in housing or urban development, and the first time the phrase it's not brain surgery is a bad thing. i will say one thing on ben carson's behalf, if he gets all houses looking like this, i think we will be in good shape. >> remember that picture, jesus with his hand on ben carson. what is crazy about that -- >> stop. >> he's got jesus and moses. >> they are playing hoops.

>> it's the top of the hour, and -- >> this is a great "washington post," you have to be careful about who you appoint, right? appointing boris johnson for the foreign minister, and a word of warning to donald trump, you are johnson and you have to love him, he's a crazy guy. >> that's too little to see, joe. >> it's boris johnson -- no, it's not. he flees an interview and runs away from the camera when he is asked to name the president of south korea, and we talked about her last week. still with us, veteran columnist and -- >> who is the french foreign minister? >> the other question he struggled with south korean presidents and all her troubles?

>> i am going to with great respect invite you out to the pub, and i have a terrible feeling if i keep answering you, you will keep coming back with more. >> don't you want enlightenment, you might be meeting the south korean president, and bye-bye there to the foreign secretary, boris johnson there. >> i am with boris on that one. a pop quiz. >> yeah, and it was windy. >> he probably should have known park's name. >> yeah, managing editor of bloomberg, mark halperin is with us and eugene robinson is with us, and joining us is jeremy peters. new developments this morning in donald trump's search for a secretary of state. and sources familiar with donald

trump's thinking tell morning swroes, huntsman is not in serious contention to lead the state department and never was, and general petraeus is no longer a serious candidate either, and rudy guiliani is fading for the nomination as well. the transition team search for a secretary of state is reportedly still wide open with mitt romney back among the leading candidates, and trump will meet next with exxon mobile ceo tillerson, and sources say trump is intrigued with tillerson's vast knowledge of the world. >> and he has run one of the largest companies in the world for the last 15 and 20 years, and it will be an interesting pick. >> they have had challenges. >> this process, and not secretary of state but all of these and it likes yesterday's reporting means nothing today, and today's will mean nothing tomorrow. it's mitt romney, and no, it's

not, and rudy guiliani is -- no, it's not him. >> with every pick, there's a process that goes slowly, and there are names that are floating around for dhs, and it usually goes that way, and the secretary of state is wide open and it's the most important position. i get the sense they are no closer to naming anybody today than a month ago. >> not in a rush. he wants a wow pick, and people to say that was a good choice, and somebody that can work with flynn, and they have got some things lined up in terms of early foreign policy, pro active moves, and i think he wants somebody in sync with those moves. >> don't you get the feeling he wants to make a good pick. he's bringing in pretty impressive people to advise him or be contenders.

>> one of the most important things, too, you have to have somebody that knows -- you have to have somebody that is close enough to the president or that the president respect enough that he is going to listen to who the secretary of state is, and we have got with john kerry, somebody that too often was out of the inner circle, which for barack obama has been rosen and barack obama, and that was your barack obama team, and with george push, you had colin powe powell, same enemy, and same war, and when george w. bush was asked if he tried to get powell's opinion before invading iraq, and he said no need to, i knew he was already against it. that's why you pick a secretary of state to say mr. president, this is a disastrous move. james baker may be the last secretary of state that was

really in lock step with his commander-in-chief. >> one of the key elements of the secretary of state's position, and given who donald trump is and given his past lack of experience in global and world affairs leaders of foreign countries are going to have to think the secretary of state they are speaking with speaks for the president of the united states. they are going to have to have that understanding, okay, what he is saying to me is what the president of the united states wants done, and that's a key thing. it's a positive he is talking to so many people. >> another example would be condi rice and bush 43, and she spoke for him when that she was overseas. >> she got run over by rumsfeld the first term and second term, jeremy peters, she wthe voice w able to move cheney away from

the bush administration and able to take a more centrist approach to iraq. >> i think that's why you are seeing trump take so long to make this decision, and they are in no rush to fill this and it will take time and i would not be surprised if it doesn't happen this week, and we don't have an announcement this week, and you saw trump meet again, and i believe it's three times he sat down with mitt romney to see if he has a good chemistry with him, and we know he has a good chemistry with rudy and some of the other generals, and petraeus, i know he was impressed by personally, and he wants somebody that looks like a secretary of state, and that's why he liked romney, and i think that's why he also liked petraeus and john kelly, these men have incredible presence about him and that's important to donald trump. >> everything i have heard is he actually likes mitt romney. he's gotten over that hurdle and he likes mitt romney and was

expecting -- jeremy, you are hearing the same thing, and he was actually expecting to select mitt romney after the meeting but the blowback as been extraordinary fierce. >> the jblow back on the right has been fierce, and there are conservatives that cannot believe that donald trump after having van kweurbed this element of the republican party he would go back and open the tent to him. >> let me ask you, jeremy, quickly, bob gates, a name that we brought up yesterday who's been into donald trump and they have not talked about this, and i wonder gates, who was critical of donald trump as well, though, and i am wondering this man that served eight presidents is considered to be one of the giants, one of the few remaining giants in washington, d.c., is

he such a force and such a presence that some of the concerns that some of the right have about mitt romney, they would not have about bob gates? >> you know, that's a good question. i think that you saw trump's reaction to petraeus reflect that, that he wouldn't -- as long as somebody expressed the skill and the presence and the demeanor, the stamina to do the job that trump was willing to overlook, whatever flaws or whatever characters -- >> whatever was said. yeah. when he went in there to meet him, the question is, has he had a change of heart, bob gates, since meeting trump? >> yeah, and the one thing we have found is with him bringing in mitt romney, and being this close to selecting mitt romney, at least in this position it seems they are looking -- it's

like it's a meritocracy, who can be the best job. >> one thing going on now with the exception of one or two people, the people named so far, including the president-elect and vice president-elect, they never worked in the white house -- >> yeah, and then there is that. >> a lot of what is going on with bob gates and ari fleischer, and you can say what you want, there's basic things of how do you get into the building, and how do you order computers, and how do you interact with the secretary of state. mitt romney, another guy that worked in a job like that. >> bob gates have been there. he worked for dr. brzezinski in '77, '79, and gates was the president whisperer, and nooks could come in and he's the one that sat there calmly and said

here are your options, and he has a calming affect on presidents and walks them through it methodically. >> do you think donald trump could not trust mitt romney, and other people -- >> well, look at ben carson. belt buckle. >> yeah, he gets past it. he got past ben carson and he gets past a lot of things and that's one of the surprising things, jeremy peters, you think of all the people trump has savaged, including us. >> neurotic. >> that was true. how can you argue with the truth? >> as bill clinton said and i said on the show all the time, what a president needs more than anything is a short memory. he appears to have a short memory. >> yeah, it's a funny dynamic to his personality, because when you are feuding with him from afar on twitter or on television, it seems to be much

more passionate and intense and nasty, but once you sit down with him and you talk to him, that's really proven to be an icebreaker with a lot of these people, a lot of the candidates and former enemies he has had in the media and it's the personal connection that goes a long way with him and can rebuild some of the burned bridges. i think that's part of what you are seeing in the process is trump actively seeking these people out so he can sit down and get a real feel as to whether or not they can effectively serve in his cabinet. >> and joining us now from fayetteville, north carolina, hallie jackson. we saw him last week in ohio, and what can we expect today? >> reporter: i think you will see something similar as there will be a crowd and he will feed off the energy, and he will have a speech in the prompter is my guess, and the question is what will he say when he goes off prompter.

we do think he will name his secretary of defense, and remember, this is a big military community, and the arena he chose, before the election, you saw passionate crowds and anger towards the media there, a quintessential trump rally, andet in march, a trump supporter was taken out for sucker punching a protester, and before he heads here, he's got some meetings at trump tower, of course, interesting of the list, you have iowa governor coming in, and laura ingram coming in who has been speculated as a possible press secretary, and

the exxon mobile ceo who is talked as a possible pick as secretary of state and it's notable the first time will be sitting down together and having a face-to-face conversation. i heard, i think it was jeremy talking about it's important for the president-elect to sit down and get a feel of these people, and he has not had a chance to do that with tillerson but will this morning. >> thanks. jeremy peters, thank you as well. still ahead on "morning joe," the vice president-elect of the united states, governor mike pence joins us on set in a few minutes, and we will also have ed royce. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ the no.1 choice of dentists. compared to oral-b 7000, philips sonicare flexcare platinum removes significantly more plaque.

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as chairman i am one of the strongest and fiercest advocates for strengthening the bond between the united states and taiwan. congress has always led the way in supporting taiwan and under my leadership the house foreign affairs committee has done more to elevate the importance of taiwan than at any other time in the past decade. >> that's congressman ed royce. >> this is breaking news. >> it's not breaking news. >> i knew mike flynn, jr., worked for his father. are you saying right now he is working for his father? >> he's his chief of staff. >> with all the fake news he is spitting out and churning out? >> yeah. >> he has a dot gov e-mail? >> that needs to be taken away from him. >> yeah. it does. >> it's absolutely astounding. >> for people that don't know what we are talking about, the

son of general flynn, he has been pushing out and promoting this ridiculous conspiracy theory that had real world consequences the other way when somebody walked into a pizza parlor with a gun saying he needed to rescue children. >> oh, my. >> i did not know he was active chief of staff. >> all right. >> and i think flynn is not responsible for his son but he is responsible for his chief of staff, and this is not the media carping, but it's a serious thing. >> in the clip we just showed, it was congressman ed royce, and he has been pushing to advocate for taiwan, and mr. chairman, always good to see you.

were you heartened by the phone call by donald trump. >> i presume that was a courtesy call from the president of taiwan to the president of the united states, and the early call was from the head of state from china, and so to put that in perspective. i was not too surprised. >> do you acknowledge it's breaking with diplomatic tradition, though? >> well, if we think about the long history of reagan's inaugural and taipei sending a delegation to that inauguration, and we remember some of the adjustments that president clinton made in the relationship in terms of the -- >> right. >> -- but i don't think it's that big of an issue. >> but it's breaking with tradition, you acknowledge that? >> it's a courtesy call and he is not yet president, and so

from that standpoint i am not sure what you assert is necessarily concern. >> do you have any concerns about trump speaking -- it was not just a courtesy call, they talked about china and the south china sea, and they were talking about real world issues. >> i think many of these are courtesy calls when you consider the fact this is president-elect of the united states at this point, and he's going to receive calls, issues are going to come up in the conversation, but in the general scheme of things, the median china does not perceive this to be an overshadowing event either. >> do you agree that north korea is the most significant challenge the trump administration is going to face globally? >> north korea is a huge challenge in the sense that proliferation is also a problem, but with respect to what they have been willing to do inputting all of these resources

in to developing an icbm capability that could hit the united states, yes, it is an issue and that's why we are engaged with beijing. i go to china and i go to taipei and beijing, every year. we lead large bipartisan delegations in order to discuss these issues. >> gene robinson is with us from the "washington post" and has a question. >> a different subject. are you willing to work with president-elect trump to impose a 35% tariff on companies that move jobs overseas? >> here is what i think was the major issue in the campaign, and that was nafta. and i have my own perspective on that because i raised concerns and voted against nafta and i think if the president is able to renegotiate nafta, this will allow us to, shall we say,

resolve some of the issues he's concerned about in terms of job loss, and we can get into some of the issues the way that program works down there and the number of manufacturing firms that left the united states to go right up along the border, and there were concerns in the beginning that many of us had about the way that was done. i think if he resevisits that issue, i think it would solve some of the problems we are discussing right now and i wouldn't be surprised if that is not where this starts. >> thank you. coming up, vice president-elect, mike pence, joins our table when "morning joe" returns in a moment. when it comes to healthcare, seconds can mean the difference

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♪ ♪ joining us now -- i don't think he is going to know what that is. the vice president-elect elect of the united states, mike pence. welcome back to the show. how are you? >> good to be back. doing great. it's exciting to be part of this transition. we have a historic pace.

>> yeah. >> i think this transition and this -- >> what's it like, though -- >> most exciting in the last 40 years. >> what is it like being surrounded by all that gold all the time? do you feel like you are in egy egypt? pharoah's egypt? there's a lot of gold. >> i spent most of my time in new york in his office. >> i know. >> it's busy and it's cluttered and piled high with papers and there's been a steady stream of some of the most interesting and accomplished men in the country. >> we saw al gore, and that was a surprise. >> ivanka set that up. >> al gore went by there, and is -- are you guys rethinking what the president-elect said on climate change? >> i think he made his position very clear on that. i think what you see happening

with former vice president al gore and others, and i know the former secretary of state, henry kissinger will be in a meeting with the team today, and what the president-elect is doing is bringing in a broad range of men and women and asking questions and gaining the insights to begin the country forward for every american. it's inspiring to be able to be there shoulder to shoulder with him and see it coming together. >> let's talk about the pace. there have been criticism of the pace, and some people have said the secretary of state selection process looks like "celebrity apprentice." are you guys filling enough positions quickly enough? >> well, the president-elect is filling them more quickly than any transition for the last 40 years, including when vice president, george herbert walker bush was putting his cabinet together. >> is that the case? >> it really is, and you can look at it quantifybly.

it's all about his decisiveness, and this is somebody saying from literally the morning after this election was called -- excuse me, the morning this election was called, we were right back in the office and he said be bringing people in front of me and he has been making decisions and assembling a team, and i couldn't be more inspired to be a small part of it. >> in terms of secretary of state, we saw bob gates walking in there. how open is donald trump to people who might have been critical from the get go? what do you know about how that meeting went? >> i know it was a good meeting, and a good discussion, and i think that what you see the president-elect doing is really just taking his time on literally every one of these cabinet positions, but i think we all recognize that the role of secretary of state, the person that is going to be representing the administration and representing the president

overseas and with countries around the world is a unique role, and it's a unique role historically, and he's taking his time. we have more names that may be added to the list, and there's distinguished americans on the list today and i know at just the right time he will pick, as he often says to me, the person that is best for the country and will best represent his administration to the world. >> want to ask you about the carrier deal of last week. we sat around this table and that's great news for more than 1,000 men and women in your state and i know you helped to broker it, but some of the implications of that have concerned conservatives say that's not consistent with what you believe, and that's that trump and his administration would decide whether or not a private business would move jobs, and donald trump tweeted about a 35% tariff, and those

are not conservatives. do you really believe in those things? >> i believe -- i believe very much that the american people voted on november 8th for change. and change in our domestic policy and in many ways change in our economic relationships around the world. the president-elect ran on a commitment to deal with nafta, and negotiate trade agreements -- >> do you support the tp -- >> i did. but when i first sat down with president-elect we talked about this, and he pointed to the fact whether it's nafta or some of the other large agreements, when the united states enters into the agreement with multiple countries, it's hard to get

accountability. >> and how does donald trump get some of this legislation through paul ryan's house and mitch mcconnell's senate if they don't believe like he believes, that you would do carrier deals, and put 35% tariffs on china? >> we both believe in the market and on free trade, and the united states has been negotiating really bad trade deals and as a candidate donald trump called that out and the american people agreed with him. i am from the industrial midwest and i will tell you what, we have had one heartbreak over another over the last 30 years when we have seen good-paying jobs going south of the border and overseas, and donald trump described a two-step process that i think is a reflection of the belief in the principles of the premarket, and number one is high taxes and excessive regulations and throw in obamacare in the last six years

and it literally has been creating a weight on american business that has been driving companies out of this country. we have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. donald trump and i are committed to working with the congress to lower that to 15% to make the american economy more competitive and it's to recognize the power of the free marketplace. negotiating trade deals and making sure that we put american jobs and american workers first and we put everything on the table, including a recognition that we want to remove -- this is what i hear the president-elect saying, he wants to remove the incentive of companies to pull up stakes from places like indiana and go to mexico and gain an advantage to be able to build there and sell it back here. >> knowing what i know about you and your background and your belief system, you don't believe the federal government should intervene with private companies and tell them how to run their businesses -- >> sure. >> and that's what a 35% tariff would be. and lowering the corporate tax

rate to 15% is something completely different than tariffs, and so are you for the 35 tariff? >> let me go back to the carrier -- >> are you for the tariff? >> i am for renegotiating nafta and in negotiations -- >> including the tariff of 35%? >> what we don't want to do is for companies to say it costs this much to manufacture it overseas and sell it in the united states, and it cost this much in taxes and regulations and other burdens in the united states, and that's a belief in the free market. i read this morning in the "new york times" about channeling bernie sanders or something, and that made me laugh out loud early this morning. donald trump and i believe in the free market and we simply believe that high taxes, regulations, have been driving jobs out of this country. >> but you understand, bernie

sanders voters voted for donald trump, and just like barack obama voters voted for donald trump. >> that's right. the other piece on the carrier deal, and you talk about intervention, and i couldn't be more proud of what our president-elect did in that case. i got the phone call last february as governor of indiana that this company that had been in the state of indiana since the 1950s was pulling up stakes without any notice and taking thousands of jobs south, to mexico, and frankly they were joining all of their competitors that were already in mexico, and i called them up and i had them come in my office and i said could we put together a standard incentive package that virtually every state does every week to retract and retain jobs, and they said don't bother, we don't want to talk about and we already made the decision to go, and here less than a week after the election, with putting together a cabinet and putting together a legislative agenda and assembling a national

security team, and everything else our president-elect was doing and he picks up the phone, and called the company, and one american to another said i want you to know we are going to cut taxes on businesses and individuals, and we are going to roll back the excessive regulations and renegotiate nafta and put american jobs and workers first, and he said would you be willing to reconsider this decision, and now more than 1,000 hoosiers have job security. >> mike? >> with regard to your national security team, there's a growing concern among a lot of people about some of the things, the national security adviser, mike flynn has retweeted fictitious stories, and what is the level of concern within your national security apparatus about general flynn's son? >> well, general flynn's son has no involvement in the transition

whatsoever. >> he has a transition e-mail. >> he has no involvement -- >> let me ask you that at all, and i want to underline that. you are running the transition, right? >> i am chairing it. let me correct you, joe, the president -- >> the last guy in the room. but you are chairing it and you are in charge. >> rudy guiliani would have said not only am i running the transition, i am running the world. >> okay. >> and so you are the head of the transition, and you are saying flynn's son is not involved at all in the transition? >> no, no, he's not. but i have to tell you, working with general flynn and the national security team that is coming together around the president-elect i know is already doing an extraordinary job in preparing us to be ready on day one to bring that strong leadership to the world stage that the american people elected

trump to bring. >> sorry i interrupted, mike. >> that was the question. >> make up another one. >> i got one. >> the role that general mattis will play within the national security apparatus, what is your sense of the relationship between general mattis and the national security adviser? how is that going to work? >> i think to be around the president-elect is to be around someone who pulls together everyone around him, and he gains the broadest range of counsel from people and then makes decisions, and i am very confident that general mattis, who will be formerly announced today, that the president-elect announced very memorandum rawbly on thursday, and he will bring that extraordinary experience in

combat, and really as a thought leader in matters of national security and defense to counsel the president going forward. >> we have been following the black lives matter movement and the issue of equal protection under the law, and i am pointing to the case in north charleston, officer michael slager, a mistrial. will the next administration support the fed's continuing the case against slager? >> i think that is a decision they will review and make after january 20th. >> should they? >> well, obviously every american is just heartbroken and shocked to see the video in that, and our hearts go out to the family and the community that witnessed that. the mistrial yesterday, the presumption is that there will be another trial, that they will continue -- >> there will be no effort to stop that? that will continue? >> the attorney general will make that decision whether the

federal government remains involved. >> what do you say to americans right now who are concerned whether they are muslim americans or hispanic americans -- >> who are openly expressing fear about this new administration. >> you are hearing about the fear. and black americans now who see someone shot in the back five times and not face justice, what can you -- what can donald trump -- what can the administration do between now and the date of the inauguration to insure americans that are very concerned because they don't look like you and me that there will be equal justice under the law and their children will have the same opportunities and face the same justice as our children? >> i think you go back to our speech when the president-elect accepted the outcome of this election, and i can tell you, every single day of the week, and you see it in the diversity

of people that are coming to trump tower and that he is sitting down with, he is committed to being president of all of the people of the united states of america. we are particularly excited about yesterday's announcement, dr. ben carson, somebody that grew up in an urban environment and somebody who led an extraordinary life and now will lead housing and -- >> a 2 1/2 minute of donald trump -- >> with the belt buckle story. >> pathological. >> he was quoting ben carson. >> so how do you explain that to americans? >> you know the muslim ban -- >> didn't he say he was not qualified to run anything? >> well, look, he's the most humble brain surgeon i ever met in my life. he's a brilliant man who has incredible personal faith and an incredible story and character. >> is he qualified to run an agency? >> joe, joe, he's absolutely

qualified and more than that, he's going to bring to life the president-elect's vision of really bringing real renewal to urban america. one of the most compelling messages that the president-elect delivered on the campaign trail is what do you have to lose, particularly to minority americans and african-americans? he is committed to restoring law and order to the streets of our cities and creating educational opportunities and expanding educational choice and creating jobs and opportunities that for too many americans in our cities have not been the reality now for generations. i'm telling you, when the doors are closed or when the lights are on, the message is the same, and the passion is the same and donald trump is committed to bringing prosperity and growth and enhanced security and safety to every american. >> is that karen here? >> you guys travel together. >> your family is always -- i

don't know how you do it. >> you are always with him. that's pretty good, you have to keep him in line, don't you? >> there is that. >> you bring your daughter with you, and it's hard, i know. >> can i ask you, and i asked mike, all that gold at trump tower, is that what your house looks like at indiana? >> we live in the governor's residence, and it's a pretty nice house. >> one of the things that we discovered when we first sat down, not just with the president-elect but with his family, one of the things that we have in common is to know the pences is to know a family, and to know the president-elect is to know a family and we really share that. >> thank you. vice president-elect mike pence, your people say you must go. much more "morning joe" in just a moment. those new glasses?

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willie geist, what are we looking at? >> the beautiful comcast tree. the comcast commerce tree. >> of course, willie. kids from all over america come and run around the tree. the world, run around the tree, and immediately say i must go buy something in the nbc store. >> we have been working here about ten years. this might be as crowded as it's ever been. we welcome all tourists. >> is it really crowded? >> you can't move. i mean -- >> got a lot of -- >> all right, so we just -- >> a lot of jars around the room. tries to get my out of the room. it doesn't work. it's really awful. >> how did the interview with mike pence go? >> you saw that. >> mason jars. yeah. >> what's that? let's ask mark. >> a different cat. >> oh, my god. >> he was a different cat, man, come on.

>> donald trump, looking for a running mate, was looking at a lot of people he knew well, was comfortable with. didn't know mike pence. this has worked out for both of them better than anyone i think could have imagined. even the people who were most bullish on it. >> i was the worst. >> we thought it wasn't going to work. >> i coined the termpensing. >> we were critical of it. didn't think it was -- >> didn't think he was up to it. >> that's a pretty good indicator when people say why is he talking to mitt romney? well, mike was for ted cruz. didn't seem like they fit temperamentally, yet it's worked out pretty well for him. >> he is so insync with what donald trump wants to do. he said he's playing a small role. he's playing a rouge role. he said mike flynn's son is playing no role in the transition. >> most importantly, he finished each sentence with -- make

america great again. >> yes, he does. mark's point is a good one. >> on message at all times. >> the fact, if it's true, that michael flynn jr. is not involved in the transition, is good news. anyone who fanned the flames of this phony conspiracy who put families between the ar-15 and a piece of pizza should have nothing to do with it. >> mike flynn has problems of his own with the racist tweet he put out and tweeted this year regarding jews, regarding muslims. he doesn't make his son making his problems worse. >> by the way, he still needs to apologize, mike. he still needs to apologize to america. mike flynn does, and his son needs to stop. needs to just stop. >> that's for sure. although back to mike pence. you can see, just from being here this morning, he has a calming effect on things. you can see, he must have a calming effect on donald trump. and he must have a calming effect on those who have some apprehension about the incoming trump administration.

>> that's true. >> i like how mika has a calming effect on us. >> something like that. >> very calm. just like a brzezinski. >> i do have a calming effect on you. if you're not quiet, you know what happens. >> still ahead this morning -- >> quiet now. >> still ahead this morning -- >> the mason jars. they're around my office. >> it's not only partisan politics driving the surge of fake news. there's also big money involved. >> have you seen "aviator laets lately? it's a great movie. >> it's kind of disappointing that it took president trump for actual news outlets to kind of focus on this sort of phenomenon. >> you said disappointed. did you vote? >> of course. >> who did you vote for? >> hillary. >> your biggest clicker, fbi agent suspected in hillary leaks found dead in apparent murder-suicide. >> jacob soboroff catches up

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that ralgz way, but i guess so. my staff kids me, every time i come up here, i feel invigorated. i love this place. this is where i spent my life. >> going to run again? >> yeah. i am. i'm going to run in 2020. so -- >> for what? >> for president. you know, so what the hell, man. just to be clear, were you kidding about running for president in 2020? >> i'm just not committing not to run. i'm not committing to anything. i learned a long time ago, fate has a strange way of intervening. >> it does. good morning, everyone. it is tuesday, december 6th. welcome to "morning joe." with us on set, we have veteran columnist and msnbc contributor, mike barnicle. managing editor of bloomberg politics, mark halperin, and pulitzer prize-winning columnist and associate editor of "the washington post" and msnbc political analyst eugene

robinson, along with willie, joe, and me. >> we need to get the gong show tape where chuck -- >> have you seen him dance? >> gene gene the dancing machine. >> a one-man protest this morning. i will not yet talk about the 2020 race. >> seemed a little -- >> what do you think, willie? joe biden, 2020. >> let's start the 2016 new president. >> already started. i want to see the new hampshire prima primary. new hampshire, john kerry both going up with walkers. >> don't say that about your friends. >> terrible. hilarious. >> but he's, you know, he's hating life for not running this time. >> new face of the democratic party. >> they could do better. they couldn't do better. could not do better. >> can't do better. i mean, so yeah. he's thinking about it. >> in new york tonight. maybe he'll really kick off the campaign. >> starting to raise some money. >> let's talk about now, shall we? >> seriously.

you have to get the people up in new hampshire a little, you know, walking around cash. >> i don't want to be agest. joe biden will be 78 in 2020. >> that's just fine. >> in great shape. >> that's just fine. >> bernie sanders will be 78. and if donald trump does well over the next four years, he'll be running against a 74-year-old. >> guys, about right now -- >> an 80-year-old speaker of the house. >> good god. new developments in donald trump's search for a secretary of state. sources familiar with trump's thinking tell "morning joe" that former governor jon huntsman is not in serious contention to lead the state department and never was. the sources also say that retired general david petraeus no longer a serious candidate either. and former new york city mayor rudy giuliani is fading as a candidate for the nomination as well. he's going to contest that today. loudly. on stage somewhere with a

microphone. >> the transition team search for a secretary of state reportedly is still wide open. >> with mitt romney back at the top of the list. trump will meet with exxonmobil ceo rex tillerson at trump tower. sources say he's, quote, intrigued with his vast knowledge of the world. they're looking at people. glit rr wide open, is the thing. it's still wide open. and i don't know that mitt romney is at the top of the list, but he's certainly at the top tier. but mark halperin, we have seen this go from having frantic reports a couple mondays ago that john bolton was about to be selected, to one day later having frantic reports that rudy giuliani was about to be selected. to a couple days later, having frantic reports saying mitt romney was just a smoke screen, would never be serious lly considered, to people saying mitt romney would be selected. i for one think it's a good idea

for your most important selection you open it up and even have people like bob gates coming in to advise you. >> wow, yeah. >> a lot of -- you know, this gap in time has allowed a lot of people to weigh in and some of the candidates or perspective candidates, after sitting back and not really mounting campaigns to get people to call and weigh in on their behalf are doing that now. a lot of data going to trump tower about who the best selection would be. and as i understand it, the president-elect elect and vice president-elect are sifting through that, and now, of course, thinking about more concretely, how will they work with general flynn and mattis. >> obviously, they're looking at, we talked about it yesterday, looking at a mattis -- let's say bob gates combination as a grand slam. people yesterday, david ignatius, everybody saying that was like mandal and maris. we don't know if that's even a possibility, but the fact we're even -- that we have moved there

from john bolton is pretty significant. >> it's interesting. i was in washington all weekend. that town is consumed by the transition. and the consensus is that the mattis appointment is a home run. it's a real home run. this, the appointment of the potential appointment of a new secretary of state, there's going to be a new secretary of state, is really critical. and again, the consensus and thinking in terms of the people i spoke with is it's a good thing he's taking that long to appoint a secretary of state. because they always throw in there, you've got mattis. a strong secretary of state. you're going to need that to counterbalance the potential negative influence of general flynn. >> think how different the candidates are that we just put out there. i mean, if you believe john bolton is still in the mix, that's a guy who celebrated the iraq war after everything we knew about the iraq war. >> still says the iraq war was a great idea. >> that's john bolton. mitt romney. governor, businessman, more of a manager. rudy giuliani, a mayor, more of

a homeland security guy. my point is, these guys are all over the map. there's not a theme to the kind of people they're talking to. >> rex tillerson, a guy who has run exxon for a long time. he knows the world. a lot of different names. the more the better. >> we'll keep watching that and see what happens add trump tower. there are new developments this morning on donald trump's call with taiwan that broke nearly four decades of diplomatic precedent in america's relationship with china. nbc news confirms former republican senate leader bob dole arranged the call. >> always making trouble. always dole. >> the "wall street journal" was first to report dole's role. they said the controversial call went beyond pleasantries and included a discussion about china and stability in the region according to a person familiar with the conversation. on friday, trump emphasized the president of taiwan, quote, called me.

while vice president-elect mike pence said the call had no policy implications, soon after, trump slammed the chinese government for manipulating their currency, overtaxing american products, and for a military build-up in the south china sea. meanwhile, former secretary of state henry kissinger will meet with the president-elect at trump tower later today. kissinger, an architect of u.s.-china policy has just returned from a visit to beijing where he met with president xi. yesterday, he spoke about how the chinese viewed trump's call. >> at this moment, i have been very impressed by the calm reaction of the chinese leadership. which suggests that a determination to see whether a calm dialogue can be -- can be

developed. >> yeah. so gene robinson, we had been told initially that this was sort of a bumbling call, that he stumbled into it. now we find out, actually, that bob dole had set it up and it was actually planned. i guess the statements afterwards suggest that. does that make it better or worse for you? >> well, you know, i continue to think it was not the wisest thing to do. however, i think kissinger is right. the chinese have reacted quite mildly to this. you know, in a certain sense, from their point of view, they're kind of used to breaking in new presidents to the one-china policy. and donald trump is not the first president to come into office, the first to come in and have the sort of phone call, but not the first president to come into office thinking, you know, we ought to rebalance this and we ought to have better

relations with taiwan. reagan thought that. bush 43 thought that. they get into office, and they begin to understand in its full complexity, the relationship with china china, and decide that, well, maybe we're not going to do that much rebalancing because, you know, it's a huge relationship. but and i think the chinese are banking on that same thing happening this time. >> so mark halperin, do you remain the only -- >> no, i have some backup now. >> oh, you have backup. >> who believes the phone call made sense? >> jon huntsman, tom cotton, ted cruz. >> you and cruz. tight as ticks. >> tom cotton. >> that's not helpful. >> foreign policy hands can mock me and others who say this is horrible, but this is not about taiwan. this is about trying to reset the relationship with a little bit of leverage. the chinese are calling the obama administration saying,

according to the "wall street journal," tell us what this trump man is up to. the white house says we don't know. that's unpredictability. i'll say, an expert in the "wall street journal," foreign policy expert, former cia china intelligence person says a little unpredictability is a good thing, but too much is scary. >> that's a good point. >> i don't know this is too much. it might be just a little bit. >> i have to say that there have been administrations, republican administrations that have gone in that have kowtowed, been accused of kowtowing to china too much. we have never been rewarded. we weren't rewarded in the 1990s. they continued their human rights abuses. they continued persecution of religious minorities. they continued stealing. like i said, willie -- >> can i say one more thing? this could backfire. i'm not saying this is like obviously a winning thing, but it's what he said he would do. >> willie, what i said is year after year, we would have the debates on extending most

favored trade status to china but pult conditions on them. year after year, china would run straight over thore conditions, ignore us. and there are a lot of people, especially conservatives, that actually think this phone call may have made a lot of sense. conservatives and mark halperin. >> well, it's not a defense of it, but to mark's point, wetient be surprised that donald trump did this. he talked about china as one of the organizing themes of his foreign policy and hitting china over and over again. the idea this is a surprise somehow is not to me, anyway. and the other part that doesn't ring true, is donald trump, the phone rang in his office, nobody was getting it so he picked it up and talked to the president of taiwan. bob dole set this up, according to the reporting, and trump undercut himself when he tweeted out the stuff about china and having a trade war and devaluing their trade currency. this is part of an organized move he made to send up a flare about china. >> i had an interesting

conversation saturday in washington with a democratic united states senator who raised the issue of how interesting it is that donald trump puts out there the taiwan call, and people then find out, a lot of people find out we have been selling billions of dollars in weapons to taiwan, and we don't speak to the leader of taiwan. >> it's hard, gene, to be offended by a phone call when we gave them $2 billion in military equipment last year. and that is the sort of thing, as i continue to pick on the same town, that a dude sitting watching tv in scranton, pennsylvania, is going, huh? really? what's wrong with you people in washington? you're pissed off about a phone call but you're giving them $2 billion in military equipment. doesn't match. >> diplomacy is complicated, right? yes, you know, we're giving taiwan all this military equipment, and there's sort of a de facto situation and a formal situation. but you know, what's potentially dangerous is that taiwan is for

china a core interest. a core interest defined as something they would go to war over. i don't think you start there. right? you start someplace else and maybe you get to sort of upsetting the apple cart on a core issue. but i don't think that's where you start. >> i disagree. if that's the issue that's most important to them, that's where i start. and it's almost like, you know, the whole james carville thing. look at the bird over there. and then you draw their attention to something that really matters to them and really giving away with how we negotiate with nbc every time. i say that's the most important thing to me. you had me on date dateline" three dimes every two years. >> you have been great on "dateline." >> you have those good pieces. >> we can't put you on there. i'm joking about "dateline" but that's what you do. you say this is the most important thing to me, and they're wringing their hands. we can't make it work. you say, okay, just govern me money.

okay. >> oh, my lord. >> you do this. what's the most important thing to donald trump? as it pertains to china? >> jobs? >> barack obama told him you can worry about the affordable care act. you can worry about the wall. you can worry about all these things right now, but the second you sit in my chair, you are going to be worried about north korea. if you want leverage over north korea, bring up taiwan, and make them think that when you give on taiwan, you're giving something -- like you said, gene, the most important thing to china. say i'll do that, but in return, this is what i want. you're going to have to cooperate with us more on north korea. that's how you negotiate. >> how hard will it be for donald trump to say to the chinese, you help me on north korea and jobs, i won't talk to the taiwanese. how hard would that be? >> the name taiwan will never come across my lips again, but you're going to -- you are going to be held accountable in north korea. you clean up north korea or i'm

going to taiwan six months from now. you decide. >> trump will be giving up nothing. >> he'll be giving up nothing. and you'll have with north korea, as barack obama said, the possibility of them striking seattle with nuclear weapons at the end of trump's administration. >> gene, final word. >> right. so absolutely, you want the chinese to help you out on north korea. the chinese already know it's in their interest to keep -- to keep north korea under some kind of control. the question for them is how you do that without a total collapse of the north korean regime that sends millions of people, you know, into china and destabilizes the entire region. >> still ahead on "morning joe," fake news incorporated. jacob soboroff joins us with his interview of a man who says he wrote one of the most damaging pieces of the election cycle. plus, trump's team of rivals. we'll relive trump's epic speech from the campaign mocking ben carson, who is now his nominee

for hud secretary. but first, bill karins with a check on the forecast. bill. >> joe and mika, have you seen these pictures yet? this is pretty incredible. montreal yesterday, this is a hill with ice and a thin layer of snow on top of it. so everyone was just kind of at the top, and then they had no choice but to go to the bottom. even the police cruiser. who's going to rescue them all? the snow plow driver will, or maybe not. even salting and sanding as he was going down, there was nothing he could do about it. he actually slammed into the front of the police cruiser pretty heavy. thankfully, no one was injured. one bus after another. the storm system we're dealing with today is in the southeast. no tornadoes overnight. just a good, beneficial rain, heading up through the mid-atlantic shortly. we're almost done on the gulf coast. later on this afternoon and tonight, we're going to get snow out of this. especially throughout central pennsylvania. our computers are estimating between 2 to 4 inches. not a huge deal. when you wake up tomorrow

morning, maybe doing a quick shoveling or dusting off of the car. and a little through new england. not a lot. but here's the timing of it. for lunchtime today, washington, d.c., you'll be in the rain. umbrellas needed. philadelphia, mid-afternoon. new york city, it looks like the rain arrives 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. the other story is the cold in the west. this will be the story over the next couple days. the first true arctic air of the season will be heading across the nation. taking a look at 30 rockefeller plaza, the tree looking for its first snowflakes in the season. none in the cards anytime soon. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. if you have a typical airline credit card, you only earn double miles when you buy stuff from that airline. wait...is this where you typically shop? you should be getting double miles on every purchase! switch...to the capital one venture card. with venture, you earn unlimited double miles on every purchase, everywhere, every day. not just ...(dismissively) airline purchases.

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>> wait, which one was carson? wait, did he bring -- >> he was the one who stabbed his mom, right? no, he stabbed someone's mom? hit her in the head with the hammer? >> did he stab her or hit her with the hammer? >> trump knows. let's take a trip down memory lane. >> i don't want a person who has path logical disease. i don't want it. i'm not saying he's got it. he said it. i'm not saying he's a pathological liar. i'm not saying it. he said he's got pathological disease. he said pathological temper, and then he defined it as disease. he said he has pathological disease. if you're a child molester, a sick puppy, you're a child molester, there's no cure for that. there's only one cure. we don't want to talk about that cure. that's the ultimate cure. well, there's two. there's death and the other thing. but if you're a child molester,

there's no cure. they can't stop you. pathological, there's no cure. now, he said he was pathological. okay. think of this. he went after his mother with a hammer. at a fairly young age, 14, 15 years old. i didn't. i didn't. okay. he hits a friend of his in the face with a padlock. like a masters padlock, in the face. with a padlock. a lot of damage. okay. i never did that. then here's the beauty of all. he took a knife and he went after a friend, and he lunged. he lunged that knife into the stomach of his friend, but lo and behold, it hit the belt.

it hit the belt. and the knife broke. give me a break. let me tell you, i'm pretty good at this stuff. so i have a belt. somebody hits me with a belt, it's going in because the belt moves this way. it moves this way. moves that way. when he took the knife, he went like this. and he plunged it into the belt. and amazingly, the belt stayed totally flat. and the knife broke. how stupid are the people of iowa. how stupid are the people of the country to believe this crap? >> okay, the main thing going on there. but of course, the headline this morning is, ladies and gentlemen, your hud secretary. -- >> and your president. >> first of all, do you see the people behind trump? this is early enough in the campaign where they were looking like, what?

>> what is he talking about? >> what just happened? >> i came to a political rally. that's before they were in on it. right? look. they're sitting there going, what? but i have to tell you, in the history of speeches, willie, and we were talking about this, of course, you have the gettysburg address. >> yep. >> you have your finest hour speech by churchill in 1940. >> finest hour. >> and then the belt buckle speech. >> i love the belt buckle speech. >> this was actually the amazing thing about this speech was it was the beginning of the end for ben carson. after that speech -- >> and you watch donald trump becoming a president there. >> no. no. >> you watched donald trump being trump. which he still is donald trump. >> you say he was drawing the contrasts, whereas ben carson has hit his mom with a hammer y have never hit my mom with a hammer. not only did he say all those things about ben carson, but ben carson later said he was not cut

out to run a bureaucracy. shouldn't be doing that, and now he is. >> hard to believe, right? fantastic. that's going to work well. >> the belt buckle. >> exactly, so -- >> it's all right. >> the low-energy jeb, which took down jeb. lying ted cruz. >> toughing a night. >> you're with rand paul. >> lil marco. >> he got, marco was telling porn jokes, within two weeks, got lil marco out of his game and then lil marco had to apologize. i'm sorry. but this, this really was -- the ben carson thing, he took a guy who was in first place and the belt buckle speech finished him off. >> one little tweak is if you're going to step away from the mike -- >> he doesn't care. >> couldn't hear him. >> i understand the mime. >> so anyway, ben carson.

>> that's our hud secretary. >> your hud secretary. >> also worth pointing out he's a world renowned brain surgeon and not as much with public housing. >> you never know. have to have an open mind. >> just a guess, i have no evidence of this. he's going to have a very, very strong administrator right beneath him. >> maybe. >> i hope so. >> i would think the number two probably will -- elon musk or somebody. >> chuck schumer and others have already raised grave concerns about the appointment. >> i think that's fair. >> will the confirmation hearings be on the comedy channel? >> coming up on "morning joe," donald trump's win with carrier was met with claims of crony capitalism and quid pro quos. now the ceo of their parent company is explaining their decision to keep more than 1, 0 tho,000 jobs on american soil. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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pge.com/businessenergycheckup. together, we're building a better california. he simply said, look, greg, i need you to relook at the decision to close the indianapolis factory of carrier. he said we're going to do a lot of things in this country that's going to make it a lot more conducive to manufacturing. we're going to take the tax rate down, reduce all this burdensome

regulation. when all that happens, you'll be printing money. there was no quid pro quo for him to say i'm not going to tax you if you don't do this. he said take a hard look at it. we worked with governor pence and i think be came up with a relatively good solution for everybody. we keep the plant open. we keep 1100 people employed in indianapolis. we still get to do the preponderance of the restructuring which we were going to do anyways. so i would say no deal, but at the end of the day, a good deal for utc. >> that's greg hayes, ceo of carrier's parent company united technology saying there was no quid pro quo in the deal struck with president-elect trump despite accusations of crony capitalism. >> what did trump tell him? >> you're printing money. >> believe me. huge. >> joining us, daniel drezner. he writes, the spoiler alert section at t"the washington po " post." also with us, pulitzer prize-winning business and economics columnist for "the

washington post," steven pearlstein, professor of public and international affairs at george mason university. >> steve, thank you so much for being back with us. i remember you predicting accurately that the bank bailout was going to turn a profit in the end and i made you repeat that 12 times because i didn't believe it. you were right there. when you say this carrier deal may actually end up being something that some ceos actually welcome, i took notice. why do you say that? >> well, in the 1980s, something changed in american capitalism. putting the shareholders first became the mantra. and part of that was shipping a lot of jobs overseas to get cheap labor. it became so fashionable that any ceo who wasn't doing that or who wasn't thinking of doing that was hammered by wall street, and sometimes was

threatened with a takeover by activist investors. so that became the new norm of behavior in corporate america. and what donald trump is doing in his own sort of bombastic, narcicisstic way, is trying to change that norm back. he doesn't want to intervene in all these cases, but he wants to make it clear that that behavior of putting shareholders first before everyone else, before communities, before workers, is no longer acceptable. >> you describe the tyranny of shareholders. >> yeah, and the funny thing is, to go to your question, a lot of ceos don't like that shareholder only maximizing shareholder mantra. theyed would rather balance interests, and if donald trump gives them the head room to do that, they might welcome it. >> daniel, a lot of conservatives are pointing to the solyndra deal back at the beginning of the obama administration, saying this is crony capitalism.

it's picking winners and losers. no better than what barack obama did with solyndra. do you agree? >> i mean, obviously, the scale of solyndra is much larger. this is a much smaller example. yeah, it's pretty much rank hypocrisy by republicans who are supporting this deal. i would argue that import substitution as a method to promote economic growth has pretty much failed everywhere it's tried. i'm not sure this deal is going to represent all that much in the way of generating a whole lot of positive economic growth in the united states. and as the ceo of united technologies said, this preserves a couple jobs. it doesn't stop the other much larger share of jobs that are going to be moving to mexico anyway. this is a great exercise in symbolic politics. i'm sure you have seen the morning consult poll that says this is really popular, but it's not going to change much in the way of the economy. and it furthermore might save the jobs of people working at the carrier plant in indianapolis. it's destroying the possibilities for their children who are going to try to find jobs once they graduate high school or college.

>> daniel, what would you say to steven who says this could have a chilling effect on other ceos and have some impact on corporate culture in america that changed in the '80? >> i don't doubt that, you know, no matter what the ceo of united technologies says, this is clearly the power of the state trying to dictate to corporations what they should do. and it is entirely possible that you will see fewer factories try to ship jobs overseas. what you will also see, however, is those same companies not create any new jobs. and that's kind of what drives the united states economy. we destroy a fair amount of jobs every month. we also create more jobs every month. if you're a ceo, why would you want to create a job in the united states knowing if at some point you might have to change, you're going to be under threat by the trump administration of some sort of lawsuit or some sort of other government action. >> there's a big difference between retaining jobs and creating them. last hour, i asked vice president-elect mike pence about government intervention and conservative ideology and whether or not he agrees with

trump's call again the other day for a 35% tariff on products from companies who move overseas. listen. >> lowering the corporate tax rate to 15% is something completely different than imposing tariffs on people. are you for the 35% tariff? >> let me go back to the intervening part. >> are you for the tariff? >> i'm for us putting everything on the table in negotiations, in renegotiating nafta and in negotiations -- >> including the tariff, 35%. >> what we don't want to do is for companies to say it costs this much to manufacture it overseas and sell it in the united states, and it costs this much in taxes and regulations and other burdens to manufacture it here in the united states. we have to put the american worker and american jobs first. but that's a belief in the free market. i mean, i read this morning in "the new york times" about channeling bernie sanders or something. that made me laugh out loud early this morning. >> so steven, governor pence wouldn't say whether or not he's

for the proposed 35% tariff. trump said on chinese goods, it might be 45%. he said that during the campaign. what would be the impact of that here in the united states? >> well, willie, let me first say that that's a bluff. they know they can't put a 35% tariff on individual companies that don't do what the trump administration says, so there's a lot of bluff and bluster here. that's going to be donald trump's way of doing business. if you put them across the border, it would be very bad for the world economy, and it would be very bad for our economy. we are the second or third largest exporter in the world. most -- many of our best jobs are associated with the export sector, whether it be in high-tech or entertainment. or finance, so you know, it wouldn't be a good idea. i'm not making a case here for protectionism. i'm making a case here that we can rebalance corporate culture in a way that benefits us and

not only do we retain jobs but we would actually create more jobs by investing here. i disagree with daniel on that. >> daniel drezner, mark halperin, of all the things trump and pence team are talking about, the republicans on the hill that might help the economy, which ones would you single out as potentially actually helping the economy? >> i think the one with the biggest potential is actually infrastructure spending. that's an instance in which you can argue, no one disputes the fact the united states has a pretty serious infrastructure problem. we know the grade that engineers have given for u.s. infrastructure. i believe it was a "d." we see bridges in trouble, airports. and further more, if you invest in infrastructure, that leads to the creation of a fair number of american jobs. it's tough to outsource construction workers. that might actually be an instance where you're generating public goods that help to improve the profitability of a whole array of companies.

of course, the devil's in the details in this. a lot of the sort of infrastructure plans that the trump administration has floated or the incoming trump administration has floated look somewhat dubious. so i think in the abstract, that's a great idea. we'll see how it actually is implemented. >> daniel drezner, steven pearlstein, great to see you both. thank you. still ahead, when fake news gets real. the latest on a shooting at a washington pizzeria with ties to a conspiracy story. and we'll meet one story who turned writing those fake stories into a business. back after this.

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the north carolina man accused of firing an assault rifle, an ar-15 in a washington, d.c. pizzeria said he was motivated by a fake conspiracy theory about hillary clinton. 28-year-old edgar welch appeared before a judge yesterday, charged with four counts, including felony assault with a deadly weapon. the judge ordered welch be held

until a preliminary hearing on thursday. a siri of fake news stories and unproven conspeersacy theories voupding hillary clinton have persisted on social media before election day. even michael flynn, trump's choice for national security adviser, tweeting a link before election day to a separate news story that tied clinton to a series of crimes, including child exploitation and sex crimes with minors. no evidence has ever surfaced to any of those claims, and flynn's son, michael g. son, who serves has his father's chief of staff, also used twitter to push conspiracy theories about clinton throughout the campaign. hours after the gunfire in the pizzeria on sunday, the younger flynn again took to twitter, saying, until, quote, pizza gate, is proven false, it remains a story. that was after the instant. "the new york times" reports the younger flynn has a trump transition dot gov e-mail

address. mike pence told us flynn's son is not involved in the transition. >> what's the level of concern within your national security apparatus about general flynn's son? >> well, general flynn's son has no involvement in the transition whatsoever. >> he has a transition e-mail. >> well, he has no involvement in the transition whatsoever. >> jacob soboroff has been looking into the people behind some of these fake news stories. >> good morning. this problem is really extraordinary. buzzfeed says in the months before the election, as a matter of fact, fake news, the 19 most shared fake news articles were shared more than the 20 most shared real news articles from sources like us at nbc news and the mainstream media. the flynns are sharing this and so are 1.6 million people, looking at it, at least, 500,000 sharing it on facebook when it comes to an article about hillary clinton and her involvement in the murder/suicide of an fbi agent. again, completely fake, but this is something that in the days

before the election was seen by millions of people. i met up with a guy by the name of justin, a 40-year-old who lived in huntington beach, california, to ask how this fake news is made, how he is profiting off this fake news, and what goes into it all. take a look at this. >> so here's national report. it looks like the website of my former employer, the "huffington post." >> that was intentional. >> what was the most controversial sort of biggest story for you guys? >> we did a series of stories on ebola, where several residents in a small town in texas contacted ebola. they probably got about 6 million page views. >> 6 million. that's huge. you must get a kick out of that. >> very addictive. >> you feel like you stopped cold turkey? >> i do. again, i'm good with that. i think that, you know, it's kind of disappointing that it took president trump for actual news outlets to kind of focus on this sort of phenomenon.

>> you say disappointed. did you vote? >> of course. >> who did you vote for? >> hillary. >> this is your biggest election clicker. fbi agent suspected in hillary e-mail leaks found dead in apparent murder suicide. >> the murder is still being investigated, but fbi is an agent with the fbi and well liked in the community. >> is any of that true? >> not a single thing. >> not a single thing. >> totally fiction. >> three days before the election, half a million people saw the post. two days before the election, over half a million people read an article about an fbi agent who killed his wife and himself because of pressure in the clintons. how much did this post make you? >> likely somewhere around about $8,000. >> $8,000. >> most of that, again, goes to the writer. >> $8,000 in your mind, is it worth it if 1.6 million people who saw this believe hillary clinton was involved in the murder/suicide of an fbi agent? >> this is one i would probably take back. so, you know.

and even to kind of add to that, google closed all the accounts that were running on the site. so even that money is gone. >> do you foal like the work you did from this computer affected the results of the election in any way? >> i do not. it's something that, again, i'm glad you're here now talking about it, but you should have been talking about it years ago. >> he has sworn off fake news, justin tells me, guys, but too little too late in the eyes of a lot of people out there who were consumers of this fake news. >> jacob, is this totally commercial to them? are any of them pushing an agenda when they come up with the stories. >> some have said on the record they almost take credit for donald trump's victory. as you heard from koehler, for him, this was purely transactional, a business decision. he was making, you know, several thousand dollars on each post, particularly the ones that went out and were widely shared. and he was a hillary clinton supporter. >> thank you very much.

>> that's just jarring. >> yeah. >> the guy -- just -- >> it's time for these isolated know-it-alls in the sill agone valley of google and the facebook to get this stuff together on things like this. >> they have to have some sort of -- >> first amendment, we all love within the first amendment. >> a new world. >> we don't want to tamper with the first amendment, but there's something askew here that has to be looked at. >> you know, it's gone in cycles this misinformation. it used to be telephone calls the night before. i remember jeb bush lost to lawton childs, because he called hundreds of thousands of people saying jeb bush was going to take away their social security. you can't do that as governor. he made it up. then e-mails. people would send around the most horrific e-mails. now we're to this stage. you're right. it's hard to stop these phone calls the night before an election. it's hard to stop the e-mails. it's not hard to stop this fake news. >> no. >> if you're google or if you're

facebook. >> hard if you're twitter. >> yeah? >> yeah. >> well, so this pizzeria story. i won't dignify it by explaining what the conspiracy is, but people saw in the leaked podesta e-mails, they hallucinated words meaning other than what they mean. in other words, they took a pretty innocuous e-mail and thought the words inside that e-mail are code for what's actually happening inside this pizzeria, and that grew into a conspiracy theory, and it has real-world implications. when a guy walks in because he thinks he's saving children with an ar-15 and fires off a round where families are eating, that's real-world stuff. that's not just stuff floating around the internet. >> one of the most shocking things to me is you actually have people with college degrees, who read these fake news stories and these conspiracy theories, and then call all of us up. is this true?

>> and young people don't differentiate. >> after like the 20th, i'm like no, stop. >> do i think the flynns are doing anything knowingly? >> do they know it's not true and their drr trying to stir up trouble? >> either way is really disturbing. >> either answer is disturbing. >> if they don't know, that's really disturbing. if they do know, it's almost even more disturbing. >> okay, we'll be right back. oh, that's right! here i come!!! ohhh. i bet someone is hiding in that house... ouch!!! ohhh. oh, i bet someone is hiding in that...ahhh!!! oh, dory, are you okay? oh, let's cover that, it'll get better quicker. wait, what were we doing? hide and seek. oh, that's right. ready or not, here i come! guys, i'm still hiding! for all of life's mishaps, band-aid brand's got you covered. and bring home disney pixar's finding dory, today! the market.redict but through good times and bad... ...at t. rowe price...

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the bulk of the time was with president-elect donald trump. i found it an extremely interesting conversation. and to be continued. and i'm just going to leave it at that. >> just going to say that. >> what are you up to? >> we're talking about the mason jars. go ahead. >> in the dream twisting parade of people who walked thou the lobby of trump tower, that's near the top of the list given the fact that donald trump suggested that climate change is a hoax. here comes al gore. >> make america great again. >> do you think that means his position on climate change will perhaps evolve? >> there are ways to work with businesses that are on the forefront of -- >> we'll find out. something he knows. i think donald trump knows climate change and a lot of the green stuff is good for business. >> exactly.

>> craziest thing about the transition. you think about the outcry over mitt romney becoming secretary of state. al gore goes up and meets with donald trump. >> yeah. >> crickets. on fox news, some complaints, but he's meeting with al gore. >> things he can agree on. >> he actually talked about what people should do in washington. >> he actually said to "the new york times" when he was talking to "the new york times," actually, that he agrees that hum humans are -- humans might be the cause of climate change. something that 95% of scientists say. but that is certainly a move. and al gore even showing up there, and i do think al gore going up there does send an important message to other democrats, which is i disagree with this guy. i can either scream at him for four years or try to influence him, because unlike a lot of republicans, he's not idealogical because he's been a democrat most of his life.

>> rush limbaugh spent three hours on this today. >> it's a whole new world. to you point, i think you have to have that shot. you have to have that meeting before you can say anything. if you're just going to whine and be angry, it's just like the republicans eight years ago. try and meet. try and find something you can agree on. i can tell you right now, al gore found some things they can agree on. >> a smart move. >> and perhaps it's in the forefront of businesses on the cutting edge of climate change. >> because al gore genuinely cares about climate change. you have to get in front of the person who is going to at least have a pretty big impact. >> i'm just picturing the president-elect sitting in his office -- >> with al gore. >> and al gore has the easel with the charts. he's flipping thou the charts. >> i have actually heard al gore's pitch on a portion of climate change. >> is it good? >> it's interesting. >> is it? >> specifically, he talks in real language, for instance, in florida, you know -- >> let's have him on. >> explain to him in five years

mar-a-lago will be six feet under water. >> now, that would matter. >> i have heard him do it. >> you should book him. he's a good guest. >> we have more politics. >> this is like a politics potpourri. >> a veritable potpourri. >> aircraft for 200. >> i'm curious. >> i have a quinnipiac poll for 200. governor chris christie of the state of new jersey now late in his second term has an approval rating of 19%. >> not good. >> which alex our producer tells me is the lowest of any american governor in the last 20 years. >> you know what john mccain would say, he's bound to close relatives and staff at this point. >> wow. you talked about the potpourri continues. the trump tweet on boeing, what is it? >> boeing is building a brand-new 747 air force one for future presidents, but costs are out of control. more than $4 billion. cancel order. i don't know if that's like a plea to the obama administration or a pledge or what.

but you can bet -- >> a shot off the bow. >> now, as we speak, aren't they? >> i think he's looking for a rebate. >> that does it for us this morning. i don't know what happened here today. i apologize. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> mason jars. >> thanks. good morning, i'm stephanie rule. we have breaking news this morning. speaking out. the man who runathis the wareho commune that caught fire, killing at least 36 people. >> i would rather let them tear at my flesh than answer these ridiculous questions. >> officials set to give an update any minute amid new allegations police knew about the living conditions at that warehouse. we will bring it to you live. >> how about a little joe biden 2020? the vice president with a bombshell statement. will he run for president in four years? >> i'm just -- i'm not committing not to run. i'm not committing to anything. >> our own reporter pressing him, and he doesn't back